First of all, have a Merry Christmas to everyone tomorrow and a happy New Year next week!

I wanted to relate to you how truly blessed I was this past week in traveling to my hometown of Medina, Ohio. I traveled there to visit my mother.

Many of you don’t know that my dear mother is 94 years old! She is currently in the hospital in Medina.

She is a amazing woman so allow me brag on her a little.

I have the best mother in the world a child could have! She was always sacrificing for my two sisters and myself to make sure we had what we needed growing up.

That’s me in the middle

I saw it in the decisions she made everyday, she always put her children first.

I could remember growing up how we wanted a certain type of shoe or clothes. My Dad who also was a great provider would buy us just the basics if we asked him, but my mother always made sure we had the best that money could buy. It was nothing cheap from her but always the best.

At the start of every school year she would get out the Sears catalog and buy us the best clothes for the coming school year. We always looked like a million dollars when we started the school year.

While my older sister Pam was in College at The Ohio State University, she picked up a side job at Lawyer Johnson’s office cleaning it. The extra money she received she sent to my sister to help her out. She made sure I was taken care of while I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma going to Bible College. She would keep my nieces and nephews over the Summer breaks and practically raised them to be well disciplined individuals.

There’s nothing like a true mother’s care and Katherine Johnson showed it to us every day growing up.

Most importantly she raised us to love Jesus and serve the Lord, which was the greatest gift of all! I was in Church every Sunday at Second Baptist Church in Medina, Ohio thanks to the persistence of my mother. She sang in the choir and oh how she could sing!

There was nothing she would not do for her children!

Once a week my Father would take her to Buehler’s grocery store in Medina, Ohio to get groceries for the coming week. He would drop her off (because she never drove a car) then she would call him on the pay phone when she was done shopping to pick her up.

We could always talk to her about personal things that were happening in our lives and she would listen and give her opinion sometimes forceful , sometimes gentle.

You never heard anything negative or of ill repute about my mother in the community we lived in, she was always an upstanding righteous woman. That’s a fact!

Well, she has not been given long to live on this earth.

Her body has slowed down to a crawl, she is not eating but a few bites at each meal, her blood pressure is low, and she had been given blood transfusions because of loss of blood.

I had a chance to spend time with her this past week from Wednesday to Saturday before coming back to work and ministry. I don’t know if it’s the last time I will see her on this side before she goes to heaven. So I let her know how much I loved her, respected her, gave her a big kiss and told her, “You have been the best mother a person could ever ask for.” Then I handed her over to the Lord.

She led the way and gave a great example to follow! Now it is up to me to continue.

God Bless You MOM!!! LOVE YOU.

RJJ

Thanks to my life long friend Jason Hunter, his wife Lisa and Jason’s Mother Mrs Brinka Jo Hunter for being Jesus in the flesh for my trip to Ohio. You don’t know how great a blessing you were to me!!!